Sunday, November 15, 2015

American Exceptionalism: The Power of Persuasion or Coercion?

America the Beautiful is a hymn
of faith and patriotism that reveals where
the love of God and country come together to define American values:

America,
America,

God
shed His grace on thee,

And
crown thy good with brotherhood

from
sea to shining sea.

…God
mend thine every flaw.

Confirm
thy soul in self-control,

thy
liberty in law.
(page 396, United Methodist Hymnal)

Americans
believe that God has blessed their nation, and they look to God to mend its flaws
with a confirmation of its self-control and liberty in law. That is the foundation of American
exceptionalism—the idea that America should share the blessings of liberty in
law by making democracy, civil rights and the secular rule of law available to those
beyond its borders. But that idea has
often been flawed by America’s lack of self-control in the use of its coercive
powers, as evidenced by its military interventions in Vietnam and Iraq.

America’s
military power is essential to protect the freedom of Americans and their allies,
but too often that power has been deployed to promote national interests that are
more related to national pride than to freedom.
Today Islamist terrorism is a very real threat to freedom. It is motivated by radical Islamist beliefs grounded
in distorted interpretations of the Qur’an that deny fundamental human rights
and promote Jihad (Islamic holy war). Holy
war is an ancient religious concept ordained by the ban of Deuteronomy 20:16-18 and exercised by Joshua at Jericho,
and it was resumed by Christians in the Medieval Crusades and Inquisitions.

Radical
Islamism is a religious and political threat to liberty in law, and it is competing
for the heart of Islam, which is predicted to supersede Christianity as the
world’s largest religion by 2070.
Radical Islamism is a fundamentalist form of Islam that promotes rigid authoritarian
and theocratic standards of legitimacy that conflict with democracy, human
rights and the secular rule of law. Other
religions have similar fundamentalist sects, but in Judaism and Christianity they
are non-violent and a minority among more moderate majorities. Radical Islamism is dangerous since it
promotes violence and is intolerant of conflicting beliefs, and it is growing.

The
authoritarian and theocratic ethics of radical Islamism and the libertarian and
democratic ethics of other religions in the Western world represent conflicting
concepts of legitimacy, but that conflict does not have to be violent. Fundamental differences in religious
standards of legitimacy can be resolved by updating the ancient teachings of
Moses, Jesus and Muhammad with advances in knowledge and reason and then
finding common ground on political issues.
Muslim scholars have set an example by proposing the greatest commandment to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself
as a common word of faith for Jews,
Christians and Muslims alike; and in today’s pluralistic world, that means
loving those of all and no religions.

When
believers of competitive and exclusivist religions become neighbors, the
freedoms of religion and speech are essential to peaceful coexistence. There can be no love for neighbor if those
freedoms are denied, and Islamist apostasy and blasphemy laws do just that. If and when Muslims embrace liberty in law as
a matter of faith as well as law, radical Islamism will be denied its
legitimacy and relegated to minority status among Muslims, denying Islamist
terrorism its life-blood. Undermining
the legitimacy of radical Islamism should be the objective of American
exceptionalism, and that depends upon powers of persuasion, not of coercive
military force, which has only enhanced the legitimacy of Islamist terrorism
among young Muslims.

America
should have learned painful lessons in legitimacy from its misuse of military
power in Vietnam and Iraq; but those lessons in legitimacy have been neglected
by President Obama, who has ignored human rights and aided authoritarian
regimes, and increased U.S. military involvement in Syria and Iraq after
earlier vowing not to do so. At the same
time, Arab allies in the region have reduced their roles in fighting ISIS, and Turkey
has become ambivalent, seeming to support ISIS as it opposes Kurds seeking
independence, leaving the U.S. once again perceived by many Muslims as an
infidel intervenor in the Middle East.

American
exceptionalism has long been a motivating force in U.S. foreign policy, and it
can be a positive force so long as it relies on persuasion rather than coercion
in promoting the ideals of democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law—which
are not just American values, but universal values. But when American exceptionalism motivates the
use of coercive military force to reshape the world in its own image, it does
more harm than good—as in Vietnam and Iraq.
Today American exceptionalism has bad connotations around the world. To regain respect it must emphasize the power
of persuasion over coercive military power.

The
awesome power of America’s military has seduced its leaders to rely on its hard
coercive power rather than using the soft power of persuasion to promote
liberty in law. It confirms Lord Acton’s
razor that Power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely. Donald
Trump is a caricature of the arrogance of power. Joel Chandler Harris debunked such arrogance
in his tale of Brer Rabbit and the Tar
Baby, in which Brer Rabbit persuaded Brer Fox to extricate him from a tar
baby and throw him into a familiar briar patch.
Islamic cultures have been a veritable tar baby for the U.S. military. In such hostile cultural environments, wisdom
dictates reliance on the powers of persuasion, but the arrogance of American
power has favored the use of coercive force to achieve victory. As in Vietnam and Iraq, the results are
predictable.

Notes
and References to Resources:

Previous blogs on related topics
are: Religion and Reason, December 8,
2014; Faith and Freedom, December 15,
2014; Religion, Violence and Military
Legitimacy, December 29, 2014; The
Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Jesus
Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and
Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; Religion
and Human Rights, February 22, 2015; The
Power of Humility and the Arrogance of Power, March 22, 2015; A
Fundamental Problem with Religion, May 3, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; De Oppresso Liber: Where Religion and
Politics Intersect, May 24, 2015; Christians
Meet Muslims Today, June 21, 2015; Freedom
and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; How
Religious Fundamentalism and Secularism Shape Politics and Human Rights,
August 16, 2015; Legitimacy as a Context
and Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict, August 23, 2015; A Strategy to Defeat Radical Islam:
Containment, not Confrontation, November 1, 2015; and Tough Love and the Duty to Protect Life and Liberty, November 8,
2015.

Seymour Martin Lipset has cited
Alexis DeTocqueville, Max Weber and Samuel Huntington in support of the idea that
American religions motivated the American success story that defined American
exceptionalism. See Lipset, American Exceptionalism:
A Double-Edged Sword, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996, pp 60-67.

Andrew J. Bacevich has predicted
the end of American exceptionalism and said “…the American people ought to give
up the presumptuous notion that they are called upon to tutor Muslims in
matters related to freedom and the proper relationship between politics and
religion.” But Bacevich misses the point
that “freedom and the proper relationship between politics and religion” are
the means to defeat Islamist terrorism. See
Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Henry
Holt and Company, New York, 2008, pp 176, 177.

Richard Cohen has described
American exceptionalism as a misguided mix of patriotism, politics and religion
that has caused Americans to sanctify their traditional values and ignore their
flaws, contributing to the decline of America in relationship to other nations.
See Richard Cohen, The Myth of American
Exceptionalism, The Washington Post, May 9, 2011.

For a discussion of American exceptionalism
and military legitimacy, see Barnes, Religion,
Legitimacy and the Law: Shari’a, Democracy and Human Rights at page 8 posted in Resources at http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/.